You'd expect students of that caliber to work outside of the classroom.

What if the person did plenty of work outside the classroom, but it never happened to involve object-oriented PHP? I just don't understand the bizarre notion that if one hasn't written object-oriented PHP before, then apparently, well, I'm not even sure what the conclusion is supposed to be, but it seems to be along the lines of "you are a crappy programmer."

I think the problem is many people mistake CS programs for some sort of vocational education.

Right ... but why would you assume they'd have used PHP?